Thousands of delivery drivers filed legal claims against Amazon on Tuesday, alleging the company’s classification of them as independent contractors instead of employees has led to unpaid wages and other financial losses.
Two law firms spearheading the action said about 15,860 Amazon Flex drivers have submitted arbitration claims with the American Arbitration Association, where 453 similar cases are already being litigated.
Amazon’s Flex program, which was founded in 2015, signs up drivers to deliver packages with their own cars and a special app.
The company pitches the work as a flexible, part-time opportunity that allows people to earn extra income during the hours they choose. Most drivers earn $18-25 per hour, according to Amazon, though how much they get paid can depend on other factors, such as their location and how long it takes to complete deliveries.
The arbitration claims submitted Tuesday were made by drivers in California, Illinois and Massachusetts, all of which have rules that limit the amount of control companies can exert over independent contractors. The claims, collected over a span of four years by attorneys Joseph Sellers and Steven Tindall, maintain the drivers should be classified as Amazon employees instead of independent contractors, based on current laws in the three states.
That change would allow Flex drivers to collect unpaid wages because Amazon only pays them for a pre-determined number of hours regardless of how long it takes to complete deliveries, according to the lawyers. It would also allow Flex drivers to receive overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week and get reimbursements for work-related expenses, such as gas costs and vehicle wear and tear.
Gas and other vehicle costs are a “huge expense to our clients,” Tindall said during an interview. He also said one client represented in the claims worked 7-day weeks making deliveries for Amazon during a holiday period and never was paid overtime.
. . .
Tindall and Sellers say they have so far succeeded in seven of the eight arbitration claims against Amazon they took to trial. The drivers they represented in those cases were awarded an average of $9,000 in damages.
A South Florida jury found the company liable for killings committed by a paramilitary group that was on the banana producer’s payroll.
The jury on Monday ordered the multinational banana producer to pay $38.3 million to 16 family members of farmers and other civilians who were killed in separate episodes by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia — a right-wing paramilitary group that Chiquita bankrolled from 1997 to 2004.
The company has faced hundreds of similar suits in U.S. courts filed by the families of other victims of violence by the paramilitary group in Colombia, but the verdict in Florida represents the first time Chiquita has been found culpable.
The decision, which the company said it planned to appeal, could influence the outcome in other suits, legal experts said.
The verdict in favor of the victims is a rare instance — in Colombia and elsewhere — in which a private corporation is held accountable to victims for its operation in regions with widespread violence or social unrest, legal experts said.
. . .
Agnieszka Fryszman, another lawyer who represented the plaintiffs, said, “The verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed, but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita’s doorstep.”
The jurors reached their decision after two days of deliberation and six weeks of trial in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach, in which lawyers argued over the motivation for payments that Chiquita executives admitted making to the paramilitary group.
The State Department designated the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia as a foreign terrorist organization in 2001.
Chiquita, as part of a plea deal with the Department of Justice to settle charges of doing business with a terrorist group, admitted in 2007 to having paid the paramilitaries $1.7 million, as an investigation revealed.
The United Self-Defense Forces were a product of Colombia’s brutal civil war, which erupted in the 1960s and killed at least 220,000 people.
They formed in 1997 as a coalition of heavily armed far-right groups that drug traffickers and businesspeople turned to for protection from leftist guerrilla groups.
The war ended in 2016 when the government and the main leftist group, which was also responsible for killing civilians, signed a peace deal.
Lawyers representing the families in the South Florida trial argued that Chiquita’s operations benefited from the company’s relationship with the paramilitary group, which sowed fear across a 7,000-square-mile fertile farming region connecting Panama and Colombia until it disbanded in 2006.
They said the group killed or forced out farmers, allowing Chiquita to buy land at depressed values and expand its operations by converting plantain farms to more profitable banana farms.
. . .
Some victims who were part of the lawsuit were killed in front of their family members, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.
In one case, an unidentified girl was traveling to a farm by taxi with her mother and stepfather when they were stopped by gunmen, the lawyers said during the trial. The men executed the stepfather and then fatally shot the mother as she tried to run away. They then gave the girl the equivalent of 65 cents to take a bus back to town.
A court in the United States has found multinational fruit company Chiquita Brands International liable for financing a Colombian paramilitary group.
The group, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), was designated by the US as a terrorist organisation at the time.
The AUC engaged in widespread human rights abuses, including murdering people it suspected of links with left-wing rebels.
Following a civil case brought by eight Colombian families whose relatives were killed by the AUC, Chiquita has been ordered to pay $38.3m (£30m) in damages to the families.
The jury in the case, which was heard in a federal court in South Florida, found Chiquita responsible for the wrongful deaths of eight men murdered by the AUC.
The victims ranged from trade unionists to banana workers.
The case was brought by the families after Chiquita pleaded guilty in 2007 to making payments to the AUC.
During the 2007 trial, it was revealed that Chiquita had made payments amounting to more than $1.7m to the AUC in the six years from 1997 to 2004.
. . .
But the plaintiffs argued that the company formed “an unholy alliance with the AUC” at a time when Chiquita was expanding its presence in regions controlled by the AUC.
The regular payments continued even after the AUC was designated by the US as a foreign terrorist organisation in 2001.
While the AUC claimed to have been created to defend landowners from attacks and extortion attempts by left-wing rebels, the paramilitary group more often acted as a death squad for drug traffickers.
At its height, it had an estimated 30,000 members who engaged in intimidation, drug trafficking, extortion, forced displacement and killings.
It also launched brutal attacks on villagers they suspected of supporting left-wing rebels.
. . .
Agnieszka Fryszman, one of the leading lawyers for the plaintiffs, praised the families she represented, saying that they had “risked their lives to come forward to hold Chiquita to account, putting their faith in the United States justice system”.
She added that “the verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed, but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita’s doorstep”.
Another lawyer for the Colombian families, Leslie Kroeger, said that “after a long 17 years against a well-funded defence, justice was finally served”.
A second case against Chiquita brought by another group of plaintiffs is due to start on 15 July.
A Michigan federal judge on Thursday gave initial approval for a $25 million settlement between a class of Flint adults and businesses and a water engineering company accused of prolonging the town’s water crisis, calling the deal fair and an opportunity to avoid years of “exhausting” litigation.
U.S. District Judge Judith E. Levy said Veolia North America’s settlement with a Flint class of about 45,000 Flint, Michigan, property owners, businesses and adult residents was adequate and in the public’s interest to bring some closure to residents who have been involved in the litigation for nearly a decade. The judge also certified the settlement class.
. . .
Ted Leopold of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, representing the class, also said the agreement helps residents see relief faster than continuing litigation, which could potentially not reach a resolution until “years down the road.” He said the class felt it was important to bring “closure” to the case.
“We felt this was a very strong resolution of the case based on totality of circumstances we’d be up against,” Leopold told Judge Levy Thursday.
Drinking water for at least 2.5 million North Carolinians is contaminated with the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS at levels exceeding new federal standards, according to an analysis by the Environmental Working Group. EWG’s analysis is based on averaged drinking water testing results from 2022 reported by North Carolina, and information from the EPA’s Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, also known as the UCMR 5.
WRAL reports that some of the largest utilities in the state are dealing with PFAS levels above the EPA’s new standards including Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority, City of Durham, City of Greensboro, Fayetteville Public Works Commission, and Brunswick County Public Utilities.
“I don’t want everyday people to have to bear the burden of this when we know that there are companies that have put these pollutants in the water and we know we’ve got to clean it up,” Governor Roy Cooper said.
“Now’s the time to make sure that all of these water systems have the filters and technology that they need to make sure that people have clean water,” Cooper said. “And now it’s time to make the polluters pay,” he added.
This week marks the seventh anniversary of when the public learned that forever chemicals, including GenX, had been dumped into the Cape Fear River from the Chemours Fayetteville works chemical plant.
A split Second Circuit panel backed workers — and joined three other circuits — when it rejected an attempt to force a proposed class action Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit into individual arbitration, but employers are seizing on a dissent from the recent ruling to try to turn the tide.
The 2-1 decision the Second Circuit published May 1 upheld the denial of a motion to compel arbitration from debt relief company Strategic Financial Solutions LLC and Argent Trust Co., the trustee to Strategic’s employee stock ownership plan. Strategic, Argent and other Strategic employees and companies named in the suit sought to force former Strategic worker Ramon Dejesus Cedeno to individually arbitrate claims he first brought in New York federal court in November 2020 and block any claims he brought on behalf of the ESOP.
The panel majority said an arbitration provision in plan documents was invalid because it blocked Cedeno from vindicating rights under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
Plaintiff-side attorney Michelle Yau, chair of the benefits practice group at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, called the decision “a clear victory.”
“Now it’s four circuits that have held pretty much the exact same thing on the effective vindication doctrine,” Yau said. Yau added that the decision was “pretty critical for employees who need to be able to vindicate their rights in court.”
The Second Circuit decision was quickly cited in cases nationwide both at the district level and on appeal involving motions to compel arbitration of ERISA claims. The Second Circuit’s dissent even became the subject of debate at panel arguments before the Sixth Circuit in an employer-side appeal seeking to compel arbitration of a 401(k) fee suit and prompted an additional round of briefing.
The first attempts to regulate artificial intelligence programs that play a hidden role in hiring, housing and medical decisions for millions of Americans are facing pressure from all sides and floundering in statehouses nationwide.
Only one of seven bills aimed at preventing AI’s penchant to discriminate when making consequential decisions — including who gets hired, money for a home or medical care — has passed. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis hesitantly signed the bill on Friday.
Colorado’s bill and those that faltered in Washington, Connecticut and elsewhere faced battles on many fronts, including between civil rights groups and the tech industry, and lawmakers wary of wading into a technology few yet understand and governors worried about being the odd-state-out and spooking AI startups.
. . .
While anti-discrimination laws are already on the books, those who study AI discrimination say it’s a different beast, which the U.S. is already behind in regulating.
“The computers are making biased decisions at scale,” said Christine Webber, a civil rights attorney who has worked on class action lawsuits over discrimination including against Boeing and Tyson Foods. Now, Webber is nearing final approval on one of the first-in-the-nation settlements in a class action over AI discrimination.
“Not, I should say, that the old systems were perfectly free from bias either,” said Webber. But “any one person could only look at so many resumes in the day. So you could only make so many biased decisions in one day and the computer can do it rapidly across large numbers of people.”
When you apply for a job, an apartment or a home loan, there’s a good chance AI is assessing your application: sending it up the line, assigning it a score or filtering it out. It’s estimated as many as 83% of employers use algorithms to help in hiring, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
. . .
Webber’s class action lawsuit alleges that an AI system that scores rental applications disproportionately assigned lower scores to Black or Hispanic applicants. A study found that an AI system built to assess medical needs passed over Black patients for special care.
Studies and lawsuits have allowed a glimpse under the hood of AI systems, but most algorithms remain veiled. Americans are largely unaware that these tools are being used, polling from Pew Research shows. Companies generally aren’t required to explicitly disclose that an AI was used.
“Just pulling back the curtain so that we can see who’s really doing the assessing and what tool is being used is a huge, huge first step,” said Webber. “The existing laws don’t work if we can’t get at least some basic information.”
That’s what Colorado’s bill, along with another surviving bill in California, are trying to change. The bills, including a flagship proposal in Connecticut that was killed under opposition from the governor, are largely similar.
Colorado’s bill will require companies using AI to help make consequential decisions for Americans to annually assess their AI for potential bias; implement an oversight program within the company; tell the state attorney general if discrimination was found; and inform to customers when an AI was used to help make a decision for them, including an option to appeal.
A Michigan federal judge has granted final approval of an $8 million settlement between a civil engineering company and Flint, Michigan, residents, putting to rest claims the company failed to warn them of likely lead contamination that triggered a drinking water crisis in the city.
U.S. District Judge Judith E. Levy granted the parties’ motion for final approval in an order on Tuesday, saying there were no proper and timely objections to the settlement, which was initially filed before the court in a motion for preliminary approval on Oct. 31.
Under the deal, Lockwood Andrews & Newnam PC will pay out $4 million to individuals suing the company, with the other half going to the settlement class and subclass previously certified by the court in November 2021 as part of a $626 million settlement with the state of Michigan, Flint and McLaren Flint hospital.
The class is represented by Theodore J. Leopold of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Michael L. Pitt of Pitt McGhee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers PC.
“We are very pleased the court granted class certification to more than 1,700 CITGO employees and pensioners in this important ERISA case,” one of the plaintiffs’ counsel, Michelle C. Yau, chair of Cohen Milstein’s ERISA practice, said in a statement. “This ruling and the court’s recent order denying summary judgment pave the way for the class claims to move forward to trial and affirm our confidence that our clients will prevail.”
What You Need to Know
- Over 1,700 retirees are now a certified class in a complaint filed against CITGO Petroleum Corp.’s pension plans.
- The plaintiffs filed the suit alleging the company violated failed to failed calculate joint and survivor annuity benefits for retired employee.
- The estimated recovery underpayments could total over $30 million, according to the plaintiffs.
A federal judge in Chicago recently certified a class of over 1,700 members and beneficiaries against CITGO Petroleum Corp., after rejecting the fuel company’s summary judgment motion in a suit alleging it underpaid pension plans by upwards of $31 million.
U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly’s ruling will allow the plaintiffs’ case to move forward to trial against the gas and energy giant, alleging it violated the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act by it imposing a “marriage penalty” on pension plans’ joint and survivor annuity recipients.
. . .
“We are very pleased the court granted class certification to more than 1,700 CITGO employees and pensioners in this important ERISA case,” one of the plaintiffs’ counsel, Michelle C. Yau, chair of Cohen Milstein’s ERISA practice, said in a statement. “This ruling and the court’s recent order denying summary judgment pave the way for the class claims to move forward to trial and affirm our confidence that our clients will prevail. Married retirees and their beneficiaries deserve to receive accurate pension payments after years of hard work and should not be shortchanged or subjected toa ‘marriage penalty.’”
Yau told Law.com that CITGO recognized it was underpaying its retirees in 2018 when it amended its pension plans to use updated mortality assumptions. The company, however, only fixed the issues for its former employees who retired after 2018, which left behind all retirees who had previously started their pension.
. . .
Yau said these issues have resulted from employers not having their pension plans compliant with the law and failing to update their mortality assumptions in the last 50-plus years. The shortcomings on these pensions led to spousal pensions for married retirees to diverge significantly than what the law requires. She also said potentially hundred of thousands of retirees could be affected in these cases, with her case involving AT&T having more than 38,000 retirees and including underpayments that could exceed $700 million.
“Our clients and other class members are retirees who are typically on a fixed income,” she said. “Over the course of their retirement, the monthly shortfall adds up, making it harder for them to pay for living expenses, which are getting more expensive with inflation.”
. . .
The plaintiffs are also represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll in New York; Nina Wasow and Todd F. Jackson Feinberg, of Jackson Worthman and Waso in Berkeley, California; John R. Stokes, Peter K. Stris, Rachana A. Pathak and Victor A. O’Connell, of Stris & Maher; and Shaun P. Martin, of the University of San Diego Law School.
While artificial intelligence made headlines with ChatGPT, behind the scenes, the technology has quietly pervaded everyday life — screening job resumes, rental apartment applications, and even determining medical care in some cases.
While a number of AI systems have been found to discriminate, tipping the scales in favor of certain races, genders or incomes, there’s scant government oversight.
Lawmakers in at least seven states are taking big legislative swings to regulate bias in artificial intelligence, filling a void left by Congress’ inaction. These proposals are some of the first steps in a decades-long discussion over balancing the benefits of this nebulous new technology with the widely documented risks.
. . .
“If you are letting the AI learn from decisions that existing managers have historically made, and if those decisions have historically favored some people and disfavored others, then that’s what the technology will learn,” said Christine Webber, the attorney in a class-action lawsuit alleging that an AI system scoring rental applicants discriminated against those who were Black or Hispanic.
Court documents describe one of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, Mary Louis, a Black woman, applied to rent an apartment in Massachusetts and received a cryptic response: “The third-party service we utilize to screen all prospective tenants has denied your tenancy.”
When Louis submitted two landlord references to show she’d paid rent early or on time for 16 years, court records say, she received another reply: “Unfortunately, we do not accept appeals and cannot override the outcome of the Tenant Screening.”